DOI Heft:
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DOI Artikel:Mieleszkiewicz, Stefan: Vilnius as a production centre of longcase clocks from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18948#0102
Mazeikiene1' mentioned the objects of our interest in their studies on the art
of furniture.
The present knowledge of this centre does not allow for in depth
characterisation. Preliminary studies show that the longcase clock was the
preferred model in Vilnius. The few known realisations and some other
objects, classified according to formal and constructional similarity, show
different levels of carpentry and clockmaking. It is difficult to determine the
moment in history when this type of clock started to be madę in the centre in
ąuestion due to a lack of archival documents and objects, resulting, probably,
from the great fires which plagued Vilnius in 1737 and 1748. Such moment
may be approximated for the middle of the eighteenth century. Around the
mid-nineteenth century the production decreased due to strict administrative
rules, collapse of guilds and import of parts and whole movements, produced
in factories of Western Europę.
The author of this study have concentrated on forty six movements and
complete longcase clocks with at least one of the two components (a movement
or a case) madę in the Vilnius centre. The selection was madę according to the
movement signatures, an objecLs provenance, information from archival
documents and formal analogies.
Movements imported from London or movements of English type madę
in Vilnius were usually installed in Vilnius madę cases. Such movements
are characterised by brass, rectangular plates, an anchor escapement with
a massive anchor stroked with a long, single-rod pendulum, rarely a Graham
escapement with a compensated pendulum, a seconds-dial and rack striking
mechanism with rack and snail striking and one beli. Furthermore, such clocks
are characterised by a brass, sąuare break-arch dial, inserted functional
elements (seconds and minutes ring, seconds-dial, a strike/silent ring or
plaąue), top spandrels and Steel, open-work hands, usually blackened. These
constructional and decorative Solutions applied in clock works are also
characteristic for such first-rate Polish centres as Gdańsk and Toruń as well as
provincial workshops in Lubartów, Puławy, Lublin and Łomża.lb They were
also known in Silesia, for example in Wrocław.15 16 17
15 Mazeikiene mentions a clock with John Tayłor’s English works and a case, treated in this study
as Vilnius-made, no. inv. IM 3000, O. Mazeikiene, Baldai, katalogas, Istorijos ir Etnografijos
Muziejaus Leidinys, Vilnius 1986, p. 6, ill. XLI.
16 In Gdańsk such clock works were madę in the mid-eighteenth century by Georg Abraham Reyer
and Abraham Kressing; in Toruń in the third ąuarter of the eighteenth century by Johann Christian
Logan, Julius Huntenburg and Abraham Will; in Łomża, sińce the eighteen twenties by Marcin
Repliński; in Puławy, around the middle of the eighteenth century by Szymon Kupiecki; in Lublin
in the second half of the eighteenth century by M. Gabriel Jurkiewicz.
17 For example the mirror longcase clocks from the collection of the Wilanów Museum, with
signed clock works, one: “Johann Gottfried Brandt/a Bresslau”, the other: “Christoph Benjamin
Kónig” inv. no. Wil. 3315 and Wil. 3316.
96
of furniture.
The present knowledge of this centre does not allow for in depth
characterisation. Preliminary studies show that the longcase clock was the
preferred model in Vilnius. The few known realisations and some other
objects, classified according to formal and constructional similarity, show
different levels of carpentry and clockmaking. It is difficult to determine the
moment in history when this type of clock started to be madę in the centre in
ąuestion due to a lack of archival documents and objects, resulting, probably,
from the great fires which plagued Vilnius in 1737 and 1748. Such moment
may be approximated for the middle of the eighteenth century. Around the
mid-nineteenth century the production decreased due to strict administrative
rules, collapse of guilds and import of parts and whole movements, produced
in factories of Western Europę.
The author of this study have concentrated on forty six movements and
complete longcase clocks with at least one of the two components (a movement
or a case) madę in the Vilnius centre. The selection was madę according to the
movement signatures, an objecLs provenance, information from archival
documents and formal analogies.
Movements imported from London or movements of English type madę
in Vilnius were usually installed in Vilnius madę cases. Such movements
are characterised by brass, rectangular plates, an anchor escapement with
a massive anchor stroked with a long, single-rod pendulum, rarely a Graham
escapement with a compensated pendulum, a seconds-dial and rack striking
mechanism with rack and snail striking and one beli. Furthermore, such clocks
are characterised by a brass, sąuare break-arch dial, inserted functional
elements (seconds and minutes ring, seconds-dial, a strike/silent ring or
plaąue), top spandrels and Steel, open-work hands, usually blackened. These
constructional and decorative Solutions applied in clock works are also
characteristic for such first-rate Polish centres as Gdańsk and Toruń as well as
provincial workshops in Lubartów, Puławy, Lublin and Łomża.lb They were
also known in Silesia, for example in Wrocław.15 16 17
15 Mazeikiene mentions a clock with John Tayłor’s English works and a case, treated in this study
as Vilnius-made, no. inv. IM 3000, O. Mazeikiene, Baldai, katalogas, Istorijos ir Etnografijos
Muziejaus Leidinys, Vilnius 1986, p. 6, ill. XLI.
16 In Gdańsk such clock works were madę in the mid-eighteenth century by Georg Abraham Reyer
and Abraham Kressing; in Toruń in the third ąuarter of the eighteenth century by Johann Christian
Logan, Julius Huntenburg and Abraham Will; in Łomża, sińce the eighteen twenties by Marcin
Repliński; in Puławy, around the middle of the eighteenth century by Szymon Kupiecki; in Lublin
in the second half of the eighteenth century by M. Gabriel Jurkiewicz.
17 For example the mirror longcase clocks from the collection of the Wilanów Museum, with
signed clock works, one: “Johann Gottfried Brandt/a Bresslau”, the other: “Christoph Benjamin
Kónig” inv. no. Wil. 3315 and Wil. 3316.
96